The latest entrant into the compact car segment, the Alto K10 from the Maruti stable, has become the fastest selling model in the country ever, clocking sales of over 20,000 units in the last 40 days. Shashank Srivastava, chief general manager, Maruti Suzuki India said, “We have already sold more than 20,000 units of Alto K10. No other model in the country has received such a response within 40-odd days since launch.”

“The K10 is an aspirational car at the entry-level. In larger cities, entry level cars do not find many takers. But K10 with its combination of features and the price at which they are offered has struck a chord with customers across cities,” he added.

Prior to Alto K10, Maruti Suzuki had registered record sales for the Ritz which was launched in May 2009. Ritz sold 15,000 units within the first two months of its introduction. Annual sales for the car stood at 67,000 units. The Maruti Swift which was introduced in 2005 sold only 4,000 units in the initial months of its launch, however, they now sell 11,000 to 12,000 units a month. Hyundai Motors’ i20 company executives say, also had a strong launch but never went beyond 15,000 cars a month. Alto, which is the country’s largest selling car brand, sells around 22,000 units every month on an average. With the K10 variant coming in, sales shot up by around 27 per cent to 28000 vehicles for Alto (which includes both the Alto 800 cc version and the new K-10) alone in August. Buoyed by the response K10 has got, the company now is looking at selling 30,000 units of Alto this month.

Industry experts say that the number could go up to 40,000 if the constraints in production faced by the company is resolved and extra assembly lines put in. The new Alto K 10 sports an upgraded 998 CC engine – the same as A-star, Zen Estilo and Wagon R. The model is priced at Rs 3.03 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi, Lxi variant) and Rs 3.16 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi, Vxi variant). The engine produces 68bhp of peak power (compared to 46bhp produced by the existing 800cc Alto). The new K10 engine can provide 20.2 km per litre and can go from 0-100 m per hour in 13.3 seconds.

Since its launch on Indian roads more than a decade back, the Alto has continued to create new benchmarks in sales almost every month. This car was developed to upgrade customers who were buying the M800 but wished to have a better all-round vehicle even if it came at a minor premium.

Despite a robust increase in competition in the compact car segment with affordable price tags, sales of the Alto continue to scale new heights. The product sold 240,000 units last year, nearly a quarter of Maruti’s more than one million sales.